something black... [Kindle Edition]

Steven Montano (Author)

Book Description

The end of the world is here.

A mysterious commuter train crash leaves no survivors, but that’s just the beginning. Within 24 hours, most of Washington’s population has vanished, and chaos spreads like wildfire as murderous shadow creatures ruthlessly hunt down the scattered survivors.

Now a desperate band of refugees struggles to stay alive as they race across a deserted countryside in search of safety. But there are two among them who are not what they seem.

One is the cause of all of this madness. And another has been chosen to stop it.

Something evil is coming. Something sinister. Something black…


This 44K word novella is a stand-alone work of horror fiction.

WARNING: Very violent, and filled with apocalyptic images of death and foul language. Not for young readers.


About the Author
Steven Montano spent years as an accountant who dreamed of being a writer before he realized, at long last, that the two weren’t mutually exclusive. Maintaining both jobs while raising a family, however, has driven him mostly insane.

Steven is the author of the popular Blood Skies series. He lives in Washington State with the coolest family in the universe.

Visit Steven’s official website, bloodskies.com

Product Details

• File Size: 444 KB
• Print Length: 139 pages
• Publisher: Darker Sunset Press (June 16, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B008C5RJAE
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #408,638 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Something Black June 19, 2012

By T.Reader

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I give this book 4 stars (better then average) based on the 'overall' read.
There are issues within the book that had the ending not been so good, would have caused me to drop this down to three stars (an average read). Yet once the story is finally pieced together it is an exciting apocalyptic story, that causes one to think about it more when your done reading it and so that pushed the book back up to four stars.

There are a few grammar issues, however I felt these were only minor distractions.

The big flaw in this book, and the reason I almost stopped reading it all together is the constant time flip flop. Most every chapter is in another time frame. It starts off in a vague time frame, then runs a few days in a row, then jumps back 3 years ago, then back to 3 days ago, then backward to two years ago, then one year ago, then back to two days ago and this keeps going on and on flipping into pre-time, back again to modern time... Wow, this was not only distracting, but it broke the rhythm of the story.
This isn't that long of a story, but due to the confusion, and frustration of this flip flopping, it took me all day to read this because I kept putting the book down out of annoyance/confusion.

There is a fair amount of violence, gore, and cursing in this story. So much so that I full-heartedly agree with the authors' tags of 'Horror' 'Gore' and 'Violence' Warnings. An example of this, would be the 'descriptive' torture scenes of the captured soldiers.

Characters: due to the jumping around in time frame it was difficult to bond to and understand the motivation of the characters until almost the last few pages.

Plot execution: due to the jumping back and forth in time, it took a long time to understand the direction the plot was moving, but once we got to the end and could piece together where the author was taking us, the plot played out predictably and with a reasonable amount of satisfaction.

Pace of the book: Each chapter had its' own pace. Again I would say due to the jumping around in time frame, the overall pace (rhythm) of the book was sporadic.

So do I recommend this book? If you take everything I have said into consideration and can adapt to the choppiness, and the violence then... Yes, I recommend this book to those who read apocalyptic, science fiction, occult fiction.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Thick, gruesome, and juicy August 21, 2012

By HodgePodgeGalore

Format:Kindle Edition

SOMETHING BLACK... is one incredible piece of apocalyptic writing. The chaotic speed at which the state of Washington is attacked is conveyed in the writing style. Past, present, and future all become inter-woven at the same moment in time. This story shows every action has an equal and opposite reaction, or better yet, every choice has an equal and opposite outcome. The pace of the storyline and movement between characters throughout moments in time can be daunting and sometimes confusing, but the story is thick, gruesome, and juicy. A single point of clarity emerges in the final moments of utter chaos and loss of life.

Steven Montano's ability to weave a story together piece-by-piece and character-by-character with such intense imagery never ceases to amaze me. SOMETHING BLACK... does not disappoint. Having been engrossed in Mr. Montano's books since 2011, his ability to bounce within a story fascinates me just as much as the story itself.

*Received a free copy of the book in return for a review.*

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Left me unsatisfied July 4, 2012

By Randall C. Harmelink

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

The author is very good at writing horrific scenes and describing events. However, there were two major issues I had with the book:

1. The jumping back and forth in time is not the type of story I enjoy. I want the story to flow over me, to engulf me. It just becomes jolting to have to reset the perspective every chapter, to work at fitting the current chapter into the overall puzzle of what is going on.

2. There's a chapter of the book where everything is "spoon fed" to us -- what is going on, why it is happening, what needs to happen to resolve the situation, etc. Those types of things should be revealed piece by piece while the story itself is being told, not suddenly explained to us as if it is a something the author forgot to tell us and thinks we need to know to catch up to what is going on.

More About the Author

Steven Montano fell out of the sky one day and landed behind an accountant's desk. Rather than write novels about his experiences in an alternate post-apocalyptic world besieged by vampires, he decided to reconcile accounts and calculate journal entries. He still writes in his spare time.

Visit Steven's official website, bloodskies.com